I think in this case, it was a blessing in disguise... because I LOVE the way this over sized subway art turned out, on just this simple piece of plywood!

Go figure!

Alright... so here's how it all went down...

I started out with a 24 inch by about 42 inch piece of regular plywood.

I had this left over from a project that I had done prior, but you can buy a large sheet of this at the hardware store, and they will cut it down to size for you, usually for free!

I gave it a good sanding, with my mouse sander, to get all the little splinters off, and rounded up the edges a bit.

Then I took some FLAT black spray paint,

and went over the whole thing, until it was completely covered.

Next, I took some of my leftover gray paint, that I used in my pantry, and brushed one good coat over the whole thing.

The color is called Flagstone from Olympic.

My paint was FLAT.

If you use flat paint, know that it will appear darker when you first apply it, but once it dries, it lightens up quite a bit. In this picture, you can see how the gray paint is starting to dry over the first black coat, from before.

side note: Plywood usually has imperfections, knots and sometimes gaps.

This actually worked out perfectly for the look I was going for, but if you want a cleaner looking piece of wood, they have those options at the hardware stores too.

After the coat of gray was totally dry, I applied my large piece of negative space address vinyl, that I designed, to the board like so.

Normally I would have just used the actual vinyl on the board, but I wanted this sign to look a lot more distressed and worn looking. So I decided to use the vinyl as a stencil, instead.

A little bit of the edges of the board were exposed, so I just taped up the parts that were showing, so that I wouldn't get paint on them.

Then I took a foam brush, with some semi-gloss white paint, and pained over the whole vinyl decal.

It took about 4-5 coats, before I felt like I got really good coverage.

I then used a VERY technical tool, to speed the drying process along.

hee hee :) works EVERY time!

After the paint was MOSTLY dry, I peeled off the vinyl.

You don't want to wait TOO long before doing this step, because if your white paint is thick (like mine was, after a bunch of coats) and then you try to peel your stencil off, it may peel up some of the paint with it.

Mine really only took about 10 minutes or so to dry, before I peeled off the vinyl.

But since the paint was still a bit tacky, I used small tweezers to take out the insides of the letters.

This saved oodles of time :)

Okay... so this is what you will end up with.

After that, I started the final sanding process.

I used my mouse sander again... but CAREFULLY this time.Going only in up and down motions.

If you start going back and forth, OR in circles. EVERY sanding stroke WILL show up... because you have that black underneath.

I haven't put anything over the entire board yet, but I'm thinking just a quick flat clear coat will suffice, to seal it all up well.

After everything is said and done...
This is what you'll end up with!!!

We love this piece SO much! It really means a lot to us. And it reminds me often when I look at it, of the first part of our journey that we've taken as a family, thus far, in our lives.

She was the first (that I know of) to jot down all her addresses and put them into Subway Art form!

Dang that girl is good. Thanks for the idea, girly!

And yes, these are the places where we have lived, so far in our lives, as a family. But I switched everything up. So, the coordinateness are not matching, as you read down the list. I liked it better this way, but you could totally design your own to have your addresses all read out correctly. Also, I didn't include zip codes. But if you haven't lived in lots of places, and you want to fill the board up more. Those would be great space fillers!

Secondly... I already had a comment from someone saying:

"I've lived in the same place my whole life, I love this idea, but would have nothing to put on my board!"

I was thinking about this, and I thought that if you still wanted a fun subway art board like this, you could maybe put down the places that your family has visited or vacationed! Pretty much anything on the board would do. But I like the idea of just listing things, and also the sentiment that it brings, when it's places that mean something to your family .

Third...I've already had a bunch of readers ask me if I am going to be creating address subway art decals for customers from my Design Shop... and unfortunately, I'm not. So sorry!

I've taken a vow to cut way back on custom orders, due to all the time that it takes away from my little chicks and hard workin' hubby. BUT, this project could TOTALLY be done with a Silhouette if you have one!

Just print out your addresses in strips, take out the negative vinyl, and lay them down, so they piece all together! The font I used for my subway art was called Arial Unicode MS.

Another great resource, if your NOT a "do that craft on my own" kinda gal, is redletterwords.com. They make the most amazingly beautiful signs, that look really similar to this same style :)

I'm not sure if Dee is taking custom orders right now, but if not... you'll still just LOVE all of her pre-made boards and canvases. GORGEOUS!

Wow. That is so great...I really want one! I am moving (sadly) so I might need my old address somewhere for sentimental reasons. What a great idea. And, I LOVE the yellow/gray color scheme. You are so talented.amy

OK I just found your blog like 4 days ago via Pinterest, I'm not even kidding you, I've had your site open on my browser ever since going through your old posts (literally, ONE by ONE I'm on 10.03.10). I have to say reading through all your projects backwards is pretty fun ;). Can I just BE you when I 'grow up'? Pretty please?! You're so talented and amazing. Thanks for all the great ideas and inspiration. Love the subway art, that's my favorite decoration item lately.I am also grateful for the silhouette inspiration, I've had one for 2 YEARS and have yet to figure out how the dang thing works so maybe I'll try again ;)

Hello! So Emilie is a dear friend (photo by emilie) and she put me onto your cute blog, and oh my word girl, I LOVE it!! This photo wall with the ledge, beadboard, matching pops of yellow, offset with the clean white, and cute decor... is just magnificent!! GREAT JOB!!!

Omgosh I luuuuuuuuuv this! I love the way you did black and gray, it gives it a chalkboard look. ...and p.s. how in the world did you keep all the paint and sawdust off those red nails?!!! lol, you go girl! ;o)

I'm new to your site (stumbled upon b/c of someone else's blog that mentioned your photo wall). That was the first post that I saw and I too LOVED your subway art. A very neat idea b/c we have also had a number of addresses. I am so in GLAD, HAPPY, ECSTATIC that you documented the process on HOW TO create that great looking piece of ART! It amazing, you took pictures of every step and documented it for those of us who would love to recreate it....THANK YOU so much! I've never done anything like this but now I think I can b/c you've shown how to do it.....really THANK YOU!

LOVE your idea! We've lived on lots of streets with strange names, this would be a lot of fun! Found you over at Today's Creative, signed up to follow...stop by when you get a chance... http://juliechats.blogspot.com

I've seen a lot of different forms of subway art and this is by far my favorite! You are so creative! And the fact that you used adresses that so far, so personal. Love it! How did you cut the vinyl so big? What machine do you have?? Not the silhouette clearly :) fab work!

I was sooooo excited to see how you did this...but I forgot you have VINYL!! Poo...I don't have a way to get my hands on that right now. =( But REGARDLESS...it looks AWESOME! I have sign envy =) I have a song chorus I'm wanting to put on a big board like that for my son's room (or my living room...can't decide =) but I need to figure out a cheap way to do it. =) Anywho...sorry for the rambling. ;) All THAT to say - it looks GREAT, and what a BRILLIANT IDEA! ;) Tehee!

I just made something like this for myself. I created mine in photoshop and ordered it as a large photo print mounted to foam core.

Ours is a list of the vacations we have been on from our honeymoon in 1999 until now. It came out cute and I love it. I used sticky strips to mount it to the wall, no frame or anything :) If you were into spending a little more money, you could certainly order it as a gallery wrapped canvas.

Totally did this, as I am starting out our own "gallery wall" and I LOVED this idea - we're in the military, so we have a TON of addresses where we've lived :) Mine didn't turn out quite as nice, but I like the "rough" look that was completely accidental :)

I absolutely love this idea! I think my kids would have fun looking at it too since three of them were born in different places. I can already hear them saying, "That's my address!" I'm pinning this because I don't know when I'll have time to do it. I'm very impressed by yours!

WOW!!! This is a great idea. It looks perfect on your display! I made up my own saying & would like to attempt this project. In the step with the letters is that made with a cricut??? I do not own one of those. If you have any other ideas that I could use to transfer my saying I'd love to know. I realize you are very busy & may never see this. But, if you should I would love any suggestions. I have seen ones on canvas but I like this idea better. Thank you so much. Angela

I have a completely bizarre question, but I am in love with your metal file holder that is below the sign. Where did you find that gem? I love it and have been looking for ANYTHING similar for ages now. I would love to hear from you about it. Thanks!

I adore this!! Since we're an Army family and have had 9 addresses in our 9 years of marriage, I wanted to do some subway art with all of our old addresses. I searched Pinterest and came across your tutorial. Thanks so much for posting this!

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